Solihull's Touchwood, which opened in 2001 with a John Lewis store, has transformed retail in Solihull and is continuing to grow and expand.

Meanwhile, Sutton Coldfield town centre, which underwent a modest regeneration in the mid-1990s, has struggled to develop.

Successive plans for Brassington Avenue have stalled, never getting off the drawing board.

In 2009, the city council drew up a regeneration framework for the town centre designed to increase the retail space, create new civic buildings and a public square in the Red Rose shopping centre area.

But this never progressed due to the economic downturn and the council austerity cuts.

Plans to re-route the heavily congested ring road, which acts as a constraint on growth, have also been shelved.

Sutton Coldfield Conservatives have now re-launched the town's economic development committee under the chairmanship of Coun Ewan Mackey (Con Sutton Trinity) to seek ways to capitalise on the deal.

He said: "This purchase will give the council the opportunity to enable the regeneration of the town centre which is long overdue. Royal Sutton Coldfield could gain the modern, high-quality town centre it deserves.

"Once redeveloped, Sutton Coldfield would be better placed to compete commercially with other neighbouring towns.

"One only needs to look at Grand Central created from the redevelopment of New Street station in Birmingham to see what can be achieved."

But the council will already be making savings through the purchase as both Sutton Coldfield Library and the council-run, multi-storey car park are on very expensive and restrictive long-term leases - which a council report described as "onerous".

It is estimated that, by 2020, a revamp of the library building to relocate and incorporate more services could save the council £10 million a year.

In 2010, during IT installation work at the library, asbestos was discovered, leading to its immediate closure.

The city council found itself responsible for the £1.8 million decontamination work and unable to extricate itself from a 99-year lease signed in 1974.

The building was repaired and reopened two years later.

There is also much criticism of the state of the multi-storey car park, which the council operates under a lease, with its dirty crumbling concrete, frequently broken lifts and dingy walkways.